Bound
by Sakiku
Summary: G1-ish, movie-ish world. Sometimes, Mirage has trouble with what he has become. Sometimes, Jazz helps him adjust. Sometimes, being bound is freeing. Spark, p'n'p, bondage


**Prompt**: (from tfanonkink-meme)  
Bot A is into bondage, but not for the typical reason. It's not that bondage winds him(her?) up... it winds him down. It's incredibly calming for him to be tied up, blindfolded, (but never gagged), and just trussed all up like a turkey. Sometimes he even sleeps like that.

His partner is totally into it, gathering just as much joy from binding his partner as he does from having sex with him all bound up.

**Warnings:**

Sparkplay, some p'n'p, bondage, translation of subspace (not a fold in space-time continuum to store items, but the headspace some subs slip into) to its Transformer equivalent, Timeline? What Timeline?, lots and lots of computer language used for Transformer purposes.

And of course, since pretty much the first Transformer-fanfic I ever read was the socket-verse by femme4jack and gatekat and whoever else was involved in it, you will most certainly see characterization parallels in this fic. I tried to keep my own version separate, but there are some characteristics of both Mirage and Jazz that are only socket-canon but which I just can't imagine them without.

**Summary:** Sometimes, Mirage has trouble with what he has become. Sometimes, Jazz helps him adjust. Sometimes, being bound is freeing. (Spark, P'n'P, bondage)

* * *

**Bound**

He kneels in the center of his quarters, sitting on his ankles, palms on his knees, back ram-rod straight. He has turned off his optics, but his head is held high and his shoulders are squared.

There have always been comments about him. 'Stiff'. 'Stick up his exhaust ports'. 'Haughty noble who thinks he's too good for us common folk'. None of them are compliments. Even his formerly highly revered caste of 'noble-mech' becomes derogatory in the processors of the majority of the Autobot army.

From a certain point of view, they are even correct. They see him for what he wants them to see him as: the last of an elitist build, the last of a line of overpolished mechs. The last of a caste that had been the crème de la crème during Cybertron's Golden Age.

And they condemn him because in their eyes, he needlessly clings to undeserved glories of the old and refuses to go with the necessities of war.

Mirage's venting turns a notch higher as his digits twitch briefly.

He is an oddity amongst the common rabble that has been roused by the Prime. Some call Mirage naïve because he has tried talking to Decepticons instead of slaughtering them indiscriminately. Some call him a coward because he dislikes fighting. Some call him glitched because he doesn't like those upstart little organics that think themselves oh-so-important when he alone is older than their entire race. They call him out-dated.

He does not care about their observations.

At least that is what he tells himself.

The brush of an EM-field unfolding behind him takes him by surprise and interrupts his contemplations. He hasn't heard the door open; neither has he sensed anyone hacking the locking mechanism or sneaking into his quarters and around his still form. He doesn't get further than a reflexive tensing though before he freezes to sharp claws tangling in his neck cables. One wrong move, and Mirage will slice several coolant and energon lines on the metal edges.

Only then do his systems manage to complete the ID-ping and identify the bot standing behind him.

"Sloppy, sloppy," Jazz chants and Mirage's digits twitch yet again.

"A new mission?" Mirage asks, voice calm and modulated despite the claws still caught in his neck lines. Composure and perfect countenance is the daily energon of noble-mechs, programmed and raised for it from the time their spark met its shell.

Jazz chuckles, his clawed digits running lightly along Mirage's insulated cables and shaving off microscopically thin layers. "Nah, not yet."

Mirage remains silent and does not shiver from the repetitive motions. Not even his fans stutter in their low hum.

He feels Jazz activate a subspace-pocket behind him, the resulting gravitronic pulse rippling across his dermal sensors. Jazz' other claw, the one not tangled in Mirage's neck lines, reaches forward until Mirage can see what he is holding. Jazz's metallic-silver plating contrasts starkly with the coils of black nylon rope, barely an inch in thickness. However, it is not _Jazz_ holding the rope for him to acknowledge but Meister, head of Autobot Special Operations. Meister is that highly intelligent, ruthless processor core that can do whatever needs to be done behind Jazz's easy-going front. It is always Meister that holds the ropes.

Mirage shutters his optics and keeps the near-silent hum of his fans constant .

"Yah've been more uptight than usual lately," Meister comments in Jazz's voice and shaves another couple layers off Mirage's neck cables. The slight twinge of a warning message passes serenely through Mirage's processors and is shunted aside. There is no threat in the motion, just a constant reminder of Meister's presence. "Yah headin' for 'nother break?"

Is he? Mirage does not think so. He has not been feeling especially unsettled. However the rope that just barely, barely brushes his abdominal plating is both inviting and frightening. And Mirage can feel it calling to him. Does he really want to wait until Meister takes things into his own hands?

"I do not know," he says calm and composed. Calmer and more composed than he feels.

Meister, whose creation Mirage is just as much as his creators', can probably read Mirage better than Mirage himself. When Mirage had tried to join the Autobots more than a million vorns ago, there hadn't been any place for a naïve, idealistic, well-read and scholarly-elitist mech like him. What they had needed were his hunting skills, his disruptor cloak, and his intelligence without the weaknesses his noble upbringing had left him with.

He had bowed to their wishes because he had not seen any alternative.

On Prime's command, Meister had edited Mirage down to his core traits. All those prejudices and dismissals of those lower than him had been overwritten, some of them running so deep that they could have been hardwired. All that elitist pride that he as a noble-mech was better than others simply through his existence. All those rules of what is Proper and what is Right and what Should Be done and how things Should Not Be.

And then, the same bot had filled those empty sections of Mirage's base configuration with ruthless practicality and twisted his personality matrix until Mirage hadn't recognized himself anymore. The only thing remaining of the Mirage of old is his frame and the defiant determination to preserve the memories of Noble Mirage, even if he can't understand them completely anymore. It is the only thing Autobot Mirage has left of his past, so he clings to it all the harder.

Meister has been the one to shape him into what he is now. And as such, Meister continues to watch him for instabilities in his neural personality-net like he does with every one of his SpecOps mechs. If Meister thinks Mirage is heading for a break, he is probably right.

He hears Meister chuckle behind him, still using Jazz's lazy drawl. The claws that are tangled in Mirage's neck lines though are purely Meister. "Nah, Ah don' think yah're all that close. Ah jus' think yah could do with some relaxin'. Foh tha' matter, Ah could use some, too."

'Relaxin'. He nearly scoffs. As if such a mundane word would be able to capture all implications inherent in Meister's offer.

"Hardline connection?" Mirage asks. His vents remain as steady as Meister has taught him how to keep them. He keeps all inflection glyphs, both positive and negative out of his vocabulary.

Hardline means Meister connecting to him without any other bot except possibly Soundwave being able to listen in on what corresponds between them. Hardline means complete privacy from everyone else. Hardline also means memories of countless hours spent being changed at deepest coding levels by the very same bot offering again.

"Ah'm no' goin' ta work on yah tonight."

Which, as Mirage knows, does not mean that there will be no hardline connection. It doesn't even mean that there will be no probing to his processors or base operation coding. Mirage also knows that this is the best he will get from Meister after that admission that this whole event isn't only for _Mirage's_ benefit.

But the ropes are a siren call, brushing against his abdominal plates as Meister's hand swings them back and forth. The ropes are also what finally decide things for Mirage.

"Very well," he agrees and knows that from the moment he has uttered these words, to the time Meister sets him free again, the outside world ceases to exist. It is only Meister, the rope and he now, and he will soon lose himself in the other two.

Meister hums low on a frequency that pleasantly resonates with some of Mirage's more delicate components. At the same time the claws inside his neck cables untangle themselves, nipping a last teasing warning message into Mirage's processors. Mirage switches off his optics and turns up his fans for a couple of clicks before cycling them down almost completely. He finds it all too easy to slip into the beginnings of that altered processor state the ropes always leave him in.

He hears the soft thump of Meister laying the multiple coils of rope on the ground off to the side. He misses the feeling of them brushing against his plates, but he knows that what is to come will be better.

A nearly inaudible hiss of hydraulics. It sounds like Meister is picking up one coil only, sliding the length of its rope through his claws. The sound of nylon running over smooth metal in unhurried, measured intervals is soothing. Mirage doesn't even attempt to count the arm lengths until Meister reaches the other end, but he has a feeling that it is one of the longer ropes. A brief pause, then the same sound again. A bit heavier now, running not quite as smoothly – the rope is probably doubled up to find the middle.

Mirage is still kneeling in the center of the floor. He hasn't moved since before Meister had interrupted. He can stay in this position for joors on end, a remainder of his education during mechlinghood: patience, decorum, knowledge of just how he has to hold himself that his own body weight doesn't inadvertently crimp any lines.

He waits.

Through his sensors, he can follow Meister's EM-field as the other mech soundlessly walks around Mirage's still form to come and stand in front of him. He knows that, had Meister wanted to, he could have suppressed his electric emissions until none of Mirage's senses could pick up on him anymore. He also knows that Meister could have suppressed all signs of his systems heating up, could have suppressed his systems heating up, period. But Meister does not suppress them, and Mirage understands the message behind that.

He accepts it.

There is no touch between them, not yet, but Meister stands so close that there are tiny magnetic feedback loops where their armor plates are scant microns apart. Meister lets him hear the shift of his upper body, lets him feel the brush of the rope as he guides a segment of it over Mirage's head. When its U-shape settles against the sides of his neck – the loop dangling down his back until it reaches midpoint – Mirage feels more than the rope's infinitesimal weight settle upon his shoulders.

"Hold it there," Meister murmurs, and Mirage does not let his vents hitch.

He obeys.

Almost of their own volition his arms rise until his claws can put soft pressure on the rope against his clavicular struts. He does not know how long the trailing ends in Meister's claws are; all he feels are the soft tugs as Meister probably ties some knots into them. The slide of the rope against itself and against Meister's armor plates is hypnotic. There is no hurry to Meister's motions, just as there is no hurry in Mirage. This takes time to do right, and it only works when done right.

He feels the rope beneath his claws where he holds it against his plating, feels the two strands separate around his neck until the end of the loop brushes teasingly against the middle of his back. There is no pressure yet. For now, that is enough.

Slowly, more and more of the rope ends comes to rest against Mirage's front. As he had thought, they are knotted together in somewhat regular intervals. Familiar with Meister's rope style, he is quite certain that it is going to be a body harness. The knotted part is too long for a chest harness.

When Meister taps the inside of Mirage's thighs with the rope, Mirage spreads them as well as he can still kneeling on the ground.

"Up."

Mirage flexes his hydraulics and levers his aft off his heels. It isn't easy kneeling there with his legs spread wide and the rest of his body in the air, but he manages to keep his balance. He can feel and hear Meister feeding the rope between his legs, still careful not to touch him, and lay it on Mirage's ankles. That is as far as Meister can reach from the front. The rest of the rope pools between Mirage's knees as Meister leaves it there.

Soundlessly, Meister walks around Mirage until he can pick it up again from behind. He pulls the rope through until Mirage can feel that it doesn't touch the ground anymore, hanging down Mirage's front freely. The rope is then fed through the loop on Mirage's back, and while Meister never touches him – not even to pick up the loop from where it brushes against Mirage's plating – the rhythmic tugs of armlength after armlength being pulled through are comforting.

"Down."

Mirage sinks back down onto his heels, even if the rope hasn't been tightened yet to any degree. Putting all his considerable weight onto his knee plates becomes painful very quickly, and Mirage is glad that he doesn't have to hold the position any longer. Back on his heels though, a position most mechs would find equally painful, he is comfortable again and wordlessly follows the command to lift his elbows.

Meister guides the ends of the rope around his torso – he must have split them apart, there is one on each side dropping down to pool between his spread legs, falling to tease right against sensitive groin seams – and then there is the first touch of plate against plate. It is nothing more than the tip of two claws that scrape briefly against Mirage's chest as Meister lifts the knotted part of the rope going down Mirage's front. But after staying out of Mirage's reach for such a long time, standing that scant mikron away which allows for nearly the full electromagnetic strength to be transmitted but none of the tactile one, it is nearly shocking.

Slowly, measured, Meister pulls the rope ends through the doubled-up part just above the first knot. He works very close to where Mirage's hands are still fixing the ropes in place against his collar struts – the harness hasn't tightened enough yet that he could let go. But once again, it is only the rope that touches Mirage's plating.

Afterwards, Meister passes the rope ends once again towards Mirage's back, the first half-caret of the emerging diamond pattern nearly done. Again the electrifying touch of claws scraping against Mirage's plating as Meister picks up the doubled length of rope going up his back and repeats what he has done at Mirage's front. Slowly, very slowly, he pulls the loose rope ends through, and every pull sends vibration throughout the entire harness. Mirage knows that the sensations will only get stronger the more of the harness is completed, the tighter it is bound to his frame. Meister continues to pull until Mirage can feel the first half-diamond snug against his plates, and then ties a knot.

And then Meister passes the ropes to the front again, threading them into the space between the first and the second knot in the doubled-up rope. The first complete diamond.

Meister continues going back and forth, opening more and more diamonds along Mirage's front and securing them against the rope at his back. The body harness is growing tighter and tighter even as Meister has to bend down further and further to reach the spots where he can pull the ropes through. He never once loses his balance; he manages to avoid touching Mirage at all beyond those tiny electrifying scrapes when he picks up the ropes. Mirage can hear and feel Meister's engine getting hotter, but he knows that this doesn't come from the strain of bending down and getting up again so many times.

But it is still too early in the game to deal with that.

After Meister ties the last bits of rope just above Mirage's sacral plate, he straightens and steps close enough to Mirage that he can feel the magnetic resonance all along his dorsal plates. "Arms down," Meister says and Mirage rests his hands on his thigh plates. Meister's claws settle on Mirage's shoulders, gripping them steadily but not too tightly. He neither pulls nor pushes, just letting Mirage feel his presence.

It helps Mirage settle into the soft bindings wrapping all around his torso. Now that Meister isn't constantly pulling ropes through and underneath and across each other, the vibrations of the harness have ceased. At first he can still feel a phantom echo tingle throughout his plates, but slowly those misperceptions even out as the entire room settles into stillness. The only sound is Meister's vents that blow warm air against Mirage's back plates, but even that is nearly silent. Mirage's own vents have wound down so far that they are inaudible, and he simply lets himself sink into the ropes, the grip on his shoulders, the meditative silence.

An indeterminable amount of time passes before Meister removes his hands. Mirage hears him bend down and pick up another coil of rope. The next part begins.

Meister ties the center of rope into the back of the harness and then lets the ends fall to the ground for later use. Contrary to the first tying of the harness, Meister doesn't keep himself from touching Mirage now. He stands behind Mirage, his knees prodding against Mirage's back plates, his claws running along the rope by Mirage's neck. Meister nudges the nylon strings until they don't run across armor plates anymore but along their edges. The rope is not so thin that it gets lost in that small gap, but it is thin enough that only careful unraveling will remove it from there. As long as Mirage doesn't move, it is a remote pressure against delicate components. However, should he try to bend his head in any direction, the rope will get caught between plates and cause some serious exceptions that are just shy of truly painful errors.

After taking care of the rope along Mirage's neck, Meister advances further down Mirage's chest to the first diamond. He nudges the knots to rest right above and right below Mirage's chest plate, his claws scraping lightly along the seam behind which Mirage's spark is hidden. Maybe Meister will make Mirage open those plates later on. Maybe Meister will even make him bare his spark. Mirage doesn't know, but the ropes make it so that he doesn't really care.

The ropes make something inside him unwind in a way no highgrade or overload can. The more he is tied up, the more his process scheduler blends out those threads dealing with personal concerns and higher-order thinking. More and more processing space gets freed and beckons him with its feeling of utter weightlessness.

Whenever he sinks deep enough into his trance, he enters a curious state of no-mind. At those times, he still perceives everything around him, but it gets transferred to his memory banks immediately without passing through his personality matrix first. In his past experiences, it has always been a relief not having three quarters of his processors clogged by those threads dedicated to maintaining his neural personality-net. Without the neural net, his processing suddenly gets so slim and fast that it feels like he is flying.

But he hasn't reached that state yet. It is a slow progress, and Mirage is still at the beginning.

Meister's claws are both distracting and helping at the same time. They tug and draw at that first rope diamond until it opens wide enough to slip over the edge of his central armor plate. Meister has calculated the knot distance well – the diamond is just the right size to fit around that plate. And then Meister uses that rope he has tied into the back of Mirage's harness to tighten that diamond further until Mirage feels like there is a band of steel around his upper torso.

Mirage's venting hitches for a moment as Meister ties a knot, and then evens out into a slightly lower hum. The rope is incredibly tight along the rim of his armor plates, being just thin enough to slip into the small gaps between them. It rests against delicate wires and cables surrounding his lasercore, reminding him with a soft warning message that straining against it will hurt.

He holds himself as rigidly upright as he always does, and not a twinge passes through his systems.

Many would think it a painful bondage, to be forced to remain so straight for ages lest more physical pain be invited. Many would think it a punishment. But Mirage knows that although the physical strain will be getting to him like to everyone else, it is actually a mental relief. He does not need to expend the energy of keeping up an unapproachable posture; the ropes do that for him. They make sure that he does not move a millimeter out of position lest he be punished by the pain he would inflict on himself. And so, because he is not the one holding up that burden, maybe – just maybe – he can let go.

Meister finishes with the first diamond by pushing the ropes leading towards his back to rest right between the segments of his dorsal armor. They graze along his side, brush sensitive lines and tease the vulnerable structures beneath. Then he sets out to opening the second diamond along Mirage's front.

During those agonizing joors, orns, vorns while Noble Mirage had been reshaped into Autobot Mirage, the ropes had been all that had held him together. They had grounded him, helped him into this state of no-mind, made things a bit more bearable while Meister was changing core architectures so deep inside Mirage's systems that it hadn't even been painful anymore.

How Meister had known that Mirage would respond to the ropes like he did, Mirage still doesn't know. He only remembers that Meister had taken a look at him, and then given him the choice of being unrestrained or being tied down during that preliminary processor scan that would reveal what he could be shaped into. And Mirage had agreed, just aware enough of the procedure's violating nature to know that he probably would not be able to endure the necessary intrusion without fighting the hardline-connection at a physical level.

Maybe Meister hadn't known beforehand. But he had certainly known afterwards. That strange reprioritization of Mirage's process scheduler had been unmistakable. At least according to Meister.

On one hand, it had made the reprogramming easier on Mirage, both psychologically and physically. The lack of involvement of his personality matrix prevented traumatic events like core-deep code modifications from being recognized as traumatic in the first place, and as such made them much more endurable than they would have been to a fully aware mech. On the other hand, it had made his rewiring into a SpecOps member harder. Meister had had to make sure that the gradual shut-down of Mirage's neural personality-net by being bound didn't compromise him should he be caught. Those were some of the more... unpleasant lessons during his training.

And then, the memory thread is terminated softly as Mirage's scheduler reduces his personality-net processing time yet again.

The second diamond has been opened, surrounding one of his upper abdominal plates. It feels like the rope is trying to worm its way into Mirage's chassis, so tight has Meister tied it. Once again, Meister uses that second rope to put even more tension on the harness, and there are still two more diamonds to go. Mirage knows that the harness will only cut in further, until it feels as if the ropes were right against his protoform.

More uncomfortable warning messages pass through his systems. Mirage acknowledges them and then shunts them away. There is not one amongst them that tells of crimped or otherwise endangered lines. Meister knows too well just how he needs to tie the rope to let Mirage feel it, yet not get harmed by it.

The warning messages are only one more step. Mirage has already noticed that his personality processing has slowed and that some of his idle processing time is filled with immediate situational awareness handlers. The ropes he is caught in. Meister's claws against his plates. Meister's presence kneeling on the ground next to Mirage. The electromagnetic interference pattern their two mingling fields create. The constant pulls and tugs that are transferred by the body harness to vibrate against protoform sensors all along Mirage's torso. It is all starting to bleed into one big Now that Mirage can't help but submerge his processors in.

By the time Meister is done opening all the diamonds and moving the knots, Mirage has frozen in his perfectly straight and rigid posture.

On first glance, the black rope probably can't be seen next to Mirage's gleaming white and blue armor. It slips into the gaps, lines the edges, becomes one with the shadows that lie beneath Mirage's outer shell. But it is there, constantly felt by him, a tight net that vibrates with every touch and every twitch. Just like Meister's influence can be seen through every gap of Mirage's rigid exterior.

His venting is slow, so slow that it has almost stopped. He doesn't think much anymore, and so his cooling system can cut back to near inactivity. He feels Meister's hot air against his plates as the mech has been slowly heating up with every knot tightened and with every rope tied. It will not be long anymore, and Meister will initiate some kind of interface.

Mirage doesn't mind. At the moment, he isn't capable anymore of minding, but even when his neural personality-net is fully operational he never minds. Meister is _good_ at what he does, and those memory files written while Mirage is in the state of no-mind leave a startling clarity of pleasure data.

Not that interfacing with Meister is always about pleasure. Meister uses it just as often to gain access to Mirage's core systems. But Meister only hacks his way into Mirage's processors when it's necessary. And Mirage doesn't – can't – mind necessity, either.

"Arms b'hind yer back, fingers tah elbow," Meister instructs.

Mirage obeys. The rope harness sends a ripple of soft warning messages through his systems at the motion, but they pass beneath his notice. Nothing short of hard error alertes a few severity levels below fatal will make it to his attention. A couple armor plates throwing exceptions because there is a foreign body caught in the gap between them, hardly counts as that.

Meister takes yet another rope and winds it around Mirage's parallel forearm components. He ties every loop separately, making sure Mirage will not be able to move his arms at all. Then he once again makes Mirage lever himself to his knees and Meister ties his ankles in a similarly tight fashion.

"Down."

With his arms bound behind his back, keeping his balance is even harder. But Mirage does not waver, and he manages to sit back down on his heels without toppling over. However, for Meister this isn't enough. He pushes against Mirage's shoulder, urging him to bend backwards despite the fact he is still kneeling.

"Lie back. Ah'll help yah."

Meister supports his backstruts and slowly lowers Mirage's upper body towards the ground. Mirage has no choice but accept his help because otherwise he would topple over. His center of gravity is too high to allow him to bend backwards like Meister wants him to without supporting himself with his arms. And anyway, his processors are too busy dealing with all the warnings the rope harness causes.

At first, it is just the rope running from crotch to aft that throws exceptions. It grinds into the sensitive seam between leg components as he moves. However, the further he leans back, the more he has to arch over his pedes and later his arms, too. And it is that arching motion that causes the most exceptions. At his back, the rope is getting caught in seams between dorsal plates, and at his front, the increasing tension and opening gaps cause the rope to dig alarmingly into those delicate components beneath his armor.

When his shoulders touch the ground, he can feel how his forearm components rest against the wheels at his pedes. He lets his head loll aimlessly, relaxing into this straining position despite the slew of warning messages clouding his processing space. Meister gives him time to settle, get used to the stretch of his ventral side and the stress on his spinal struts. He idly trails claws along Mirage's plates, teasing exposed port covers and tracing transformation seams. Except for the one to part his chest plates.

Slowly, the warning messages ebb off as Mirage does nothing but lie there. As long as he doesn't move at all, the ropes will not throw any new exceptions, and the flags they have raised are none of importance. They can be ignored without any lasting consequences.

It doesn't come as a surprise when Meister finally teases open one of the port covers in Mirage's side and plugs in. Meister forgoes the usual ping to test their networking capacity, and instead immediately heads for Mirage's central processing unit. He twists right past Mirage's firewalls, having long ago established tunnel through them. Once inside, he has enough back doors and master passwords to bare Mirage down to his machine code. However, for now Meister seems more interested in requesting feeds from Mirage's sensors.

Meister is _good_ at keeping his own processing streamlined; however with their minds interlinked this closely Mirage can feel how Meister gets nearly overwhelmed by the raw data. It is not so much a flinch rather than a lag until Meister adjusts to the sensory input and ups his CPU frequency. But it is large and noticeable enough to penetrate into Mirage's reduced consciousness. And Meister's fans turn faster to compensate for the increased processor activity and his engine rumbles stronger for the heightened energy requirements.

He once again trails his claws down Mirage's plates. This time, Meister's fans stutter from the onslaught of unfiltered sensation coming straight from Mirage's core. He is riding along on a shared copy of the sensor data, knowing exactly how much pleasure he inflicts on Mirage.

Meister works his way around Mirage's prone form, scratching along the the rope and the rim of plates, pulling at wires exposed by the backward stretch, using the magnets in his hands to send components tingling deep inside Mirage's body.

The state of no-mind Mirage is caught in makes the entire experience transcendental.

Mirage is drifting in and out as his neural personality-net, and together with it his higher-order thought functions, take up less than one percent of their usual volume. There is too little processing time allotted for thought threads to go beyond a simple acknowledgment of the pleasure he feels, and there is even less processing time to allow for any reactions to it. He is incapable of doing anything but lie there and accept whatever Meister gives him; he doesn't even have the mind left to want for more. It is an an endless now of sensations, without judgment, without thinking further about them than their immediate presence.

When his neural personality net goes back to its regular processing power, Mirage will look back at those memory files with a shiver, both in the good and in the slightly less good sense. It always unnerves him how he can leave himself so open and vulnerable, even if he does trust Meister to only do things for Mirage's benefit. There is just no way Mirage could react to an attack in time in this state, be it on his processors or on his physical body.

But even those unsettling realizations don't change that it is an incredible experience every single time. The ropes, the slim processing that feels like he is flying, the level of data intensity that gets burned into his memory files but that he can never comprehend in its entirety when he is not caught in no-mind. Even without any pleasure involved, it is a _relief_ to be able to stop thinking.

At the moment though, there is no processing space available for any such introspective thoughts. Mirage simply lies there and feels.

Meister is starting to distort the air around him from the heat he gives off, spurred on by both his own pleasure and the feed he gets off Mirage's sensors. Were he running his personality net, Mirage would be approaching a similar state by now. But with most data passing through his processors with hardly any processing done, his fans have barely started becoming audible again. He is floating with no care for his own pleasure and yet totally immersed in it. It is a state he can never reproduce with his neural personality net active, but which is strangely compelling in its simplicity. And, should Meister stimulate him to overload, it is an incomparable experience.

There is a slight twinge when Meister runs his palms up and down along the seam holding Mirage's chest plates closed. He does not take care to blunt the edges of his sharp claws; on the other hand he has upped the intensity of his palm magnets. Even floating as he is, Mirage can't help the gasp of his fans. Meister knows only too well how to use his magnetic fields to induce pleasurable electric currents deep inside Mirage's chassis. And the claws that scrape along Mirage's seam only add more spice to the hypnotic back and forth.

Mirage can't say how long Meister keeps up the repetitive motion. The currents this induces in Mirage's electric lines swell up and down, robbing him of all processing capability with the way the energy gets transferred into his body. Slowly a charge is starting to build, but for Mirage it is nothing but yet another spec of information passing through his processors.

When Meister burrows into Mirage's operating system to trigger the command to unlock his chest plates, there is a vague sense of relief. Mirage's fans have started churning harder, approaching a steady hum. His charge is growing slowly but steadily, and in his current state of no-mind he can feel every single moment of it.

Instead of following up by triggering the opening sequence though, Meister manually pulls Mirage's chest plates apart. Mirage doesn't – can't – struggle despite the near-electric jolt of Meister's claws baring his inner workings. The motion tugs at the rope harness that is already incredibly tight, and the opening chest plates make it only tighter. More warning messages bleed into Mirage's processing space; however the electric currents inside him are high enough that the messages only add to the sensory input streaming through his processors.

Using two luggage ropes, Meister carefully makes sure that Mirage can't close his chest plates again even if he had had the mind to do so. He hooks one end into Mirage's opened chest and pulls until he can fasten the other hook around the rim of another plate towards Mirage's side. He does the same on the other side with the other luggage rope. Mirage's fans can only whirl as yet more flags are raised in his processors.

His most delicate workings are bared to all and sundry, and there is just so much damage Meister could cause with a single uncontrolled motion. If Meister hadn't tied him up into such an immobile position, Mirage's instincts would have demanded that he freeze anyway. Meister's claws are just too sharp as they ghost soft touches along the still closed iris of his laser core.

And yet, there is also so much _pleasure_ Meister can inflict.

Despite running a surface temperature that goes beyond Mirage's core temperature already, Meister takes his time stimulating Mirage further. He once again runs his palms back and forth, claws pricking, magnets inducing electric currents. This time though, it is not on the surface of Mirage's armor plates, but along the metallic crystal shielding of his laser core. Meister sends subtly timed magnetic pulses into Mirage's systems that harmonize with his spark pulses, and the interference patterns are nothing short of processor-melting.

Mirage's process scheduler has pruned out all threads that would make him anticipate or hope for an overload, and so he simply experiences the growing charge on all levels of processing. It is an intensity of pleasure that can't be matched by anything.

There is no way for Mirage to measure the time. He can only feel that Meister is slowly worming himself deeper and deeper into Mirage's subroutines until he scrapes at the bottom of Mirage's coding. Then Meister gives the command for Mirage's laser core to spiral open.

For a long moment, all activity within Mirage's body stills. His fans cut off in mid motion, his unconsciously twitching pistons halt, his gears and cardan shafts stop in their revolutions. But the spark pulsing freely in his chest, completely open and unprotected now, is spinning too hot, and so his cooling mechanisms kick in again with a vengeance. It is almost like a full-body groan as Mirage's engine sputters a bit and then revs higher than it ever had since the beginning.

Mirage doesn't know what the feed from his sensors feels like, or how many filters Meister needs to pipe them through to get processable data. But he feels how Meister nearly collapses on top of him, barely halting himself by planting a palm on Mirage's shoulder component. Even then, Meister's arm is trembling with strain and the charge running through him.

The hand resting against the edge of Mirage's opened laser core though is steady as a rock. And then Meister slowly extends his claws and rakes their tip through the surface energy of Mirage's spark, and Mirage's world dissolves into static.

If the pleasure until now had been unmatched, the sensations now are beyond description. They transcend pain and pleasure until they max out every single reading, impossible to categorize. Mirage's processors throw the first alerts, but a small twitch of Meister's claw in the outer hull of his spark cascades them out of existence. And the claw is slowly moving deeper and deeper, pushing through the intangible tangibility of Mirage's spark until it is not Mirage's processors but his spark that finally crashes into overload.

Bristling energy runs across Mirage's frame, looking for grounding before it turns on delicate internal components. And it pulses into Meister, and Meister who is already shimmering from all the heat he gives off, is pulled along into overload. They dispel the excess charge each in their own way. Meister convulses silently, clawing painfully into Mirage's shoulder components even as the other hand inside Mirage's spark barely trembles. Mirage, who has already floated along on the high of pleasure for eons, is now being drowned completely. His charge is getting converted entirely into electricity instead of kinetic energy, drawing out the overload to unimaginable lengths.

As a result, he is still sparking when Meister slowly pulls away, sending new aftershocks through Mirage's systems. Meister draws away and away, first from his spark, then from his laser core, and then from his frame until there is no other connection between them than the cable plugged into Mirage's side. Then he collapses next to Mirage, trying to recover from the exertion.

Both their fans take a very long time to cycle down to normal parameters. Mirage still doesn't process in any way resembling his usual manner, but the state of no-mind has lifted a bit.

"Here, Ah'll help yah up," Meister finally speaks.

Mirage relaxes into the slew of warning messages and alerts crossing his processors as Meister slowly lifts his torso until he is kneeling again. Not only the rope harness, but also stiff joints and his still bared spark throw exceptions. Mirage sways slightly, but then his hydraulics kick in to hold him upright. Slowly, the warning messages ebb off again.

Sailing along on the euphoria of aftercharge and being bound, Mirage feels incredibly light. His scheduler is gradually waking the threads that belong to the ultra-light core of his neural personality-net, but none of the heavy decision-processing is active yet. Meister chuckles something about Mirage being more out of it than when he is overcharged, poking and prodding freely at Mirage's core programming. Mirage feels too good to mind the familiar touch.

After several breems, Meister terminates the hardline-connection without modifying anything. Mirage barely twitches.

With two snicks of Meister's claws, the ropes binding Mirage's ankles and forearm components are cut. It is only when Mirage moves his arms to hang at his sides that he realizes that Meister's grip on his shoulder has left some deep gauges in the throes of ecstasy. He ignores them. They are nothing but surface damage and can be filled in later.

Meister needs to prod him several times until Mirage realizes that he has asked him a question and is actually waiting for an answer. "Yah want yer harness gone, too?"

Alarm makes Mirage flare his fields in a distinctive no before he manages to restrain himself again. "Leave it," he says despite the ropes having become quite uncomfortable. He hesitates a bit, then decides to forge ahead. "Can you tie me to my berth before you go? I am due for a recharge period."

Meister raises an optic ridge. "Da way yah're now?"

He refers to the luggage ropes still holding Mirage's chest plates open and baring his laser core. At least the central iris has already spiraled closed again to protect his spark, but it still leaves him very vulnerable.

Mirage is not ready though to leave the ropes quite yet. They hold him up and hold him together, allow him to relax completely within their bonds. And they allow him to distance himself from Autobot Mirage's worries for some more time.

"Yes." There is no hesitation.

Tomorrow, he will be the stuck-up but quixotic Noble Mirage again to the common Autobots, the valued Autobot Mirage to his superiors, and cunning but secretive Spy Mirage to his fellow SpecOps. For now though, he wants to keep his barriers dropped and simply _be_ whatever he has become after all the core-deep modifications Meister has inflicted on him.

Meister chuckles again, but obediently pulls several more short ropes from subspace. "Need ter work through some things still?"

"A few."

It is with a lot of struggling that the shorter Meister helps Mirage get to his feet. The first few steps are more staggers than steps because he has knelt for such a long time, and the harness cuts into the seams between his plates in a most distracting manner. But Meister manages to guide him to his berth without any mishaps, and Mirage settles down with a groan. Already the ropes begin calling again, and already his processing gets slower again.

With a few practiced moves, Meister ties Mirage's four limbs to inconspicuous but strategically placed hooks. Mirage is lying on his back, his bared internal workings not coming into touch with anything.

Contrary to last time though, Meister places a loop of rope in Mirage's palms. Mirage knows the game well enough to be aware that should he pull on the loop, he would be able to free himself. It is necessary, because Meister doesn't have a recharge cycle right now and needs to leave. Mirage _could_ free himself even without that help because the ropes aren't very heat resistant. However, that would only be a last resort because he hates destroying ropes. He can already feel how he is sinking deeper again.

Meister pats Mirage's helmet before he steps back and slowly changes back to his Jazz's personality. Jazz looks at him with an energetic smile before he turns around and gives a wave. "Ah'll be tuned in ter yah com frequency," is his parting call. "Have a good recharge."

And then Mirage is alone with the ropes and his bared laser-core and the warning messages in his processors, and it is strangely comforting to be able to allow himself to wind down like that.

He never realizes when he slips into recharge.

–

* * *

**A/N:**

"Greetings to the fine folk that moderate our site."

That is how a large percentage of A/N's have been starting lately. I'm getting sick and tired of the sheer half-brained stupidity that goes into that letter which has been viral-marketed to just about anywhere on the net. Look to my profile to see a longer rant about just why I think it's so stupid.

And yes, I did post this story solely to have a place to get rid of my rant on things. Well, and to turn my nose on technical rating definitions that definitely weren't made to have aliens doing something that they don't consider sex.

Oh, feedback of any kind is very encouraged!

~Sakiku


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